IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v165y2021i1d10.1007_s10584-021-03011-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate and hydrologic ensembling lead to differing streamflow and sediment yield predictions

Author

Listed:
  • Travis A. Dahl

    (Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory
    Michigan State University)

  • Anthony D. Kendall

    (Michigan State University)

  • David W. Hyndman

    (Michigan State University
    The University of Texas at Dallas)

Abstract

Climate change is leading to alterations of the hydrologic cycle and sediment movement within watersheds, but the details and impacts of these changes are indeterminate. To reduce this uncertainty, many researchers create ensembles by averaging the projected temperature and precipitation from multiple global climate model (GCM) ensemble members before running these as forcing inputs through hydrologic models. There is little research quantifying if these ensembled climate scenarios produce similar hydrologic model results to those based on individual ensemble members. We created multiple sets of ensembled climate inputs for a pair of hydrologic and sediment yield models of adjacent watersheds that drain to the Great Lakes. We then compared the hydrologic and sediment results of the models forced by these ensembled climate scenarios with hydrologic ensembles created by running the individual climate ensemble members through the same hydrologic models. We found that, in all cases, the streamflow and sediment yield results are significantly different at the 5% confidence level and the ensembled climate scenarios can lead to systematic negative biases. We also looked at three subset hydrologic ensembles: all 10 CMIP5 ensemble members from the CSIRO mk3.6 model; a Representative ensemble with high, moderate, and low precipitation predictions; and a Best Fit ensemble based on GCM performance relative to historic climate. We found that the subset ensembles covered a large portion of the range of outputs for the whole set, while producing mean annual streamflows within 5.5% of the full hydrologic ensemble results and sediment yield and sediment discharge results within 12.2%.

Suggested Citation

  • Travis A. Dahl & Anthony D. Kendall & David W. Hyndman, 2021. "Climate and hydrologic ensembling lead to differing streamflow and sediment yield predictions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-15, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:165:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-021-03011-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-021-03011-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-021-03011-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-021-03011-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Toshihiko Masui & Kenichi Matsumoto & Yasuaki Hijioka & Tsuguki Kinoshita & Toru Nozawa & Sawako Ishiwatari & Etsushi Kato & P. Shukla & Yoshiki Yamagata & Mikiko Kainuma, 2011. "An emission pathway for stabilization at 6 Wm −2 radiative forcing," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 109(1), pages 59-76, November.
    2. Andrew C. Ross & Raymond G. Najjar, 2019. "Evaluation of methods for selecting climate models to simulate future hydrological change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 407-428, December.
    3. Kayla A. Cotterman & Anthony D. Kendall & Bruno Basso & David W. Hyndman, 2018. "Groundwater depletion and climate change: future prospects of crop production in the Central High Plains Aquifer," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 187-200, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. D. Santillán & L. Garrote & A. Iglesias & V. Sotes, 2020. "Climate change risks and adaptation: new indicators for Mediterranean viticulture," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 881-899, May.
    2. Cai, Yiyong & Newth, David & Finnigan, John & Gunasekera, Don, 2015. "A hybrid energy-economy model for global integrated assessment of climate change, carbon mitigation and energy transformation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 381-395.
    3. Odette Deuber & Gunnar Luderer & Robert Sausen, 2014. "CO 2 equivalences for short-lived climate forcers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 651-664, February.
    4. Foster, T. & Brozović, N., 2018. "Simulating Crop-Water Production Functions Using Crop Growth Models to Support Water Policy Assessments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 9-21.
    5. Fujimori, Shinichiro & Masui, Toshihiko & Matsuoka, Yuzuru, 2015. "Gains from emission trading under multiple stabilization targets and technological constraints," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 306-315.
    6. Salam, Md. Abdus & Furuya, Jun & Kobayashi, Shintaro, 2017. "Climate Effect on Supply and Market Price Stability of Rice in Bangladesh: Assessment of Climate and Socioeconomic Scenarios," Japanese Journal of Agricultural Economics (formerly Japanese Journal of Rural Economics), Agricultural Economics Society of Japan (AESJ), vol. 19.
    7. Okagawa, Azusa & Masui, Toshihiko & Akashi, Osamu & Hijioka, Yasuaki & Matsumoto, Kenichi & Kainuma, Mikiko, 2012. "Assessment of GHG emission reduction pathways in a society without carbon capture and nuclear technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(S3), pages 391-398.
    8. Andrea Karin Barrueto & Juerg Merz & Nicole Clot & Thomas Hammer, 2017. "Climate Changes and Their Impact on Agricultural Market Systems: Examples from Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-16, November.
    9. Mishra, Gouri Shankar & Zakerinia, Saleh & Yeh, Sonia & Teter, Jacob & Morrison, Geoff, 2014. "Mitigating climate change: Decomposing the relative roles of energy conservation, technological change, and structural shift," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 448-455.
    10. Omid Alizadeh, 2022. "Advances and challenges in climate modeling," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 1-26, January.
    11. Katherine Dagon & Daniel P. Schrag, 2019. "Quantifying the effects of solar geoengineering on vegetation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 235-251, March.
    12. Hermann Lotze-Campen & Martin Lampe & Page Kyle & Shinichiro Fujimori & Petr Havlik & Hans Meijl & Tomoko Hasegawa & Alexander Popp & Christoph Schmitz & Andrzej Tabeau & Hugo Valin & Dirk Willenbocke, 2014. "Impacts of increased bioenergy demand on global food markets: an AgMIP economic model intercomparison," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(1), pages 103-116, January.
    13. Cai, Yiyong & Arora, Vipin, 2015. "Disaggregating electricity generation technologies in CGE models: A revised technology bundle approach with an application to the U.S. Clean Power Plan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 543-555.
    14. Nathalie Spittler & Ganna Gladkykh & Arnaud Diemer & Brynhildur Davidsdottir, 2019. "Understanding the Current Energy Paradigm and Energy System Models for More Sustainable Energy System Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-22, April.
    15. Tomoko Hasegawa & Shinichiro Fujimori & Petr Havlík & Hugo Valin & Benjamin Leon Bodirsky & Jonathan C. Doelman & Thomas Fellmann & Page Kyle & Jason F. L. Koopman & Hermann Lotze-Campen & Daniel Maso, 2018. "Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(8), pages 699-703, August.
    16. Ritchie, Justin & Dowlatabadi, Hadi, 2017. "The 1000 GtC coal question: Are cases of vastly expanded future coal combustion still plausible?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 16-31.
    17. Chen, Yong & Marek, Gary W. & Marek, Thomas H. & Moorhead, Jerry E. & Heflin, Kevin R. & Brauer, David K. & Gowda, Prasanna H. & Srinivasan, Raghavan, 2019. "Simulating the impacts of climate change on hydrology and crop production in the Northern High Plains of Texas using an improved SWAT model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 13-24.
    18. D. Santillán & L. Garrote & A. Iglesias & V. Sotes, 0. "Climate change risks and adaptation: new indicators for Mediterranean viticulture," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 881-899.
    19. Clifford Chuwah & Twan Noije & Detlef P. Vuuren & Philippe Sager & Wilco Hazeleger, 2016. "Global and regional climate impacts of future aerosol mitigation in an RCP6.0-like scenario in EC-Earth," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 1-14, January.
    20. Deines, Jillian M. & Schipanski, Meagan E. & Golden, Bill & Zipper, Samuel C. & Nozari, Soheil & Rottler, Caitlin & Guerrero, Bridget & Sharda, Vaishali, 2020. "Transitions from irrigated to dryland agriculture in the Ogallala Aquifer: Land use suitability and regional economic impacts," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:165:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-021-03011-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.